Fist off, let me say that this is not intended to be a scientific post. It is merely my opinion based on observation and some research. I could be completely wrong. This is simply armchair philosophizing.

Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve been fascinated with gender. This started when I was 3 and my little sister was born. I started to pick up on the subtle differences in the ways we treat boys and girls. As I got older, I began to think more seriously about this and started reading up on gender. I have formulated something of a theory on the subject.

I believe that gender is at the very least mostly a societal construct. I’m not sure to what degree it is constructed by society, and at times I doubt that it even has a biological basis. At the very least gender is more of a spectrum than a binary.

For instance, I identify as a “woman.” However, I don’t like clothes shopping, I’m not obsessed with shoes, I’m conservative with makeup, I like things like comic books and video games, I am exclusively attracted to women (I experimented with other guys in high school and found it entirely unpleasant), and I only get the urge to dress up in “cute” outfits every 6-8 weeks and usually think that glaming out is a waste of time. Since I do not fit the stereotype for a woman (or even a transsexual), am I still a woman? Usually, I tell people I identify as a “tomboy” or a “soft butch lesbian.”

To further illustrate my point of gender as a societal construct, think of it like this: pink is a girl’s color and blue is a boy’s color. However, in the 19th century and before, pink was considered “masculine.” And furthermore, what is “gender identity” without someone to confirm it? If someone with a penis, copious amounts of body hair, a receding hairline, who is 6’6″ and dresses in men’s casual clothing identifies as a woman, if s/he really a woman? What if s/he intends to take no actions to modify their body? Even the most liberal of us would be inclined to say no.

In my theory, transsexuality is caused by a hormonal imbalance. The proper treatment for trnassexuality in a gneder-free society would simply be a low dose of hormones. I first concluded this when I saw W Meredith Bacon (a transsexual political scientist at the University of Nebraska in Omaha) speak. She said that before officially transitioning, she was simply on a low dose of estrogen, not high enough to cause any real changes in her body. She said that just being on hormones was enough to alleviate the troublesome cross-gender feelings. (She only transitioned at the suggestion of her spouse after years of hormone therapy.) Because we are socialized from birth to adhere to a two-gender system, when we become aware of our hormonal imbalance, we interpret it as cross-gender feelings.

It’s not an entirely sound theory and there’s no real way to test it as it is impossible to create a gender-free space in this world at this time, but at least it’s an attempt to explain how I feel. I’m open to criticism and expansion.